SpaceX hits 50th Falcon 9 launch of the year with Starlink mission - VIDEO
SpaceX launched its 50th Falcon 9 rocket of the year on Sunday from Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying another batch of satellites for its Starlink internet constellation, News.Az reports, citing SpaceFlight Now.
Liftoff of the Starlink 17-16 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East took place under cloudy skies at 7:37 a.m. PDT (10:37 a.m. EDT / 14:37 UTC).
A spectacular shock collar enveloped the nose of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as it thundered away from Cape Canaveral Monday morning, carrying 29 Starlink satellites to orbit. 🎥 @ABernNYC pic.twitter.com/7dKsXctHg4
The rocket carried 25 of SpaceX’s Starlink V2 Mini broadband internet satellites, following a southerly trajectory after leaving the central California coast.
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For this mission, SpaceX used first stage booster B1088, marking its 15th flight. The booster had previously supported the NROL-126, Transporter-12, SPHEREx, and NROL-57 missions, along with 10 earlier Starlink satellite deployments.
Roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, booster B1088 successfully performed an autonomous landing on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You. This marked the 193rd landing on that vessel and the 603rd booster landing overall to date.
SpaceX confirmed that the 25 Starlink satellites were successfully deployed from the second stage a little over an hour after launch, completing the mission.
By Nijat Babayev
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